According to the tripartite model of text representation (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983), readers form representations of the text surface and textbase, and construct a situation model. In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate whether these levels of representation would be affected by adding illustrations to narrative text and…

Reading comprehension can be analyzed from three points of view: Semantics, Assessment, and Cognition. Here, Semantics refers to the task of identifying discourse relations in text. Assessment involves utilizing these relations to obtain meaningful question-answer pairs. Cognition means categorizing questions according to their difficulty or…

In the present study we examined whether overlap in language across texts influences the integration of information into a coherent discourse representation for bilingual readers. Across two experiments highly proficient Spanish--English bilinguals read pairs of expository passages describing two fictional science facts while their eye-movements…

This research explores the impact of accuracy and meaning maintaining miscues on the comprehension of complex texts. The issue is explored through fourth graders' readings and retellings. Two types of reading behaviors are examined: (a) portions of text read with no miscues, and (b) portions of text read with meaning-maintaining miscues. Findings…

The present research aimed to examine young and older adults' comprehension of negated text to determine the locus of older adults' difficulty in understanding this text construction. Participants were asked to read short passages at their own pace, complete a lexical decision task, and answer a comprehension question about what they had read.…